One thing that I was pleasantly surprised by when I moved to New York was the affordable food options in the city.
For a city that was known for it’s crazy rent, insane real estate, and famous restaurants finding inexpensive food wasn’t nearly as difficult as I expected. After spending almost a decade in San Francisco, my sense of a “reasonably-priced meal” (that wasn’t fast food) was somewhere in the range of $7-9, usually at the higher end of that price range.
While in New York, you can easily find lunch and dinner options for half the price and all throughout the city. Here’s my first post of several covering the most popular cheap eats options:
The $1 Pizza (99 cent Pizza)
This might sound cliche, but it’s New York City, so I’d be remiss to not start off this series with the city’s pizza options. Pizza is synonymous with the Big Apple.
I’m not the biggest pizza fan, but the fact that you can get a one dollar slice in every neighborhood of the city has tempted me on more than several (sober) occasions.
In the East Village where I live, you can throw a rock and hit a pizza joint offering a cheese slice for $1. That or you can use Yelp to find a 99 cent pizza joint: Fat Sals, 2 Bros, Vinny Vincenz and Mamani.
As long as you don’t get suckered (or your brain isn’t flooded with alcohol) into buying a slice with more toppings, you can fill your tummy on two cheese slices, no problem. Just to emphasize, that’s two decent-sized slices of pizza for $2.
Want more flavor? Add free Parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes and garlic powder. Hungrier for more than that? Most dollar joints also offer a two slice + can of soda for just $2.75.
If you’re starving, throw another buck down for another slice and you’re only out $3. There might be cheaper food options out there, but your best bet for filling your stomach anywhere in New York is the 99 cent slice of Pizza.
